Thyroid Cancer and Treatment, My Story

I found out that I had thyroid cancer when I started sneezing food through my nose. Yes, that is pretty gross to say. However, it is the truth. I went to a doctor as I was on business. He said you need to go home now. When I did, I went start to an endochronologist. The doctor immediately found the cancer on a untrasound of my neck. He showed me where it was. He said that treatment would be easy, and I was not going to die. He set me up with a biospy, which he did. Then he recommended a surgeon to cut the cancer out of my throat. The ease of recovery was very good he said, and that I would be fine within a month.

So I had the most common type of thyroid cancer, I was told it was easy to treat. Simply take out the thyroid, and surrounding lymph nodes that were suspicious, and then do radioactive iodine. Simple one to three, and I was back to being healthy. Well, it wasn't that simple. My surgeon, a very sweet, soft-spoken person, advised me about the surgery. He said that he would do a surgery with another surgeon on me for 6 hours. I woke up to have no speaking voice, my calcium was not being metabolized, a chyle leak, which is a very serious complication that could lead to death. I was told my vocal cord nerve on the right side where all the cancer was had been severed.

So I was a mess. Everything that could go wrong, went wrong. I was unable to eat anything with any fat in it. I was force to eat when I could not swallow well. The effort to get better required a tight band of gauze around my neck. After that I also had to have something help me breath because your vocal cords do that. I also had to have something help metabolize calcium as my parathyroids were hurt after the surgery and so they were metabolizing calcium. I was also given the go ahead to go home.

• Parathyroids were hurt.
• Vocal cord nerve severed.
• Chyle leak.
• Problems swallowing.
• Problems breathing.

None of these side-effects or post-op problems were told to me by my doctors.

When I went home, my husband was great about having the gauze tight around my neck so initially I thought I could not swallow because of that tight gauze. However, after the leak stopped, I still couldn't swallow. I noticed that the back of my throat was swollen. So I went to my surgeon, and his partner prescribed steroids and a major anti-biotic. I started having really bad diarrhea. Really bad like 30 times a day. I was becoming sicker and sicker. Unable to breathe well, sleep, or relax, I went back to my surgeon. He convinced himself that I had an infection in the bad of my throat when the biospy he did showed no infection. I knew it was cancer, but he refused to believe me. He keep telling me to take the anti-biotics. Well, to my surprise and dismay, I had a c, diff. infection. Bascially, 75% of people who get c. diff. from the hospital have a 75% rate of dying from that alone. So while I was in the hospital, I was exposed to c. diff. Then when the anti-biotics cleaned out all of my good bacteria in my colon, the c. diff. took over. I was very very sick. I felt as if every cell in my body was screaming for water.

"Clostridium difficile (also called C. difficile) are bacteria that can cause swelling and irritation of the large ... Colitis caused by C. difficile can be mild or serious."

The c. diff. made me want to die. I was lying on the floor in my bathroom. I felt so bad that I actually thought I would rather die than feel this way. Between the weird non-fat diet, the lack of being able to swallow, and then the constant going to the bathroom, I was in a real pickle. I mainaged to get up and go get my husband to take me to the hospital. They could not find a vein as I was so dehydrated so they put one in my foot. I just cried. My poor husband hugged me not knowing how to help the pain and the side effects. It was bad. Really bad. We were like on an island that only the two of us knew about, and no one else was there to say we are going to rescue you!

So a month after the first surgery, the biospy came back that in fact I did have cancer in the back of my throat. I think I still do. I had a second surgery. I was going through the effects of c. diff. and they subsided only due to the second surgery. Once the medications from the surgery wore off, I was running to the bathroom. My husband was there until I just told him that he should go because I was not willing to let him see me that way. So I somehow had the worst nurses who could not put IV's into me right. THe IV fluid just when into my arm, not my blood system. The doctor was also told my c. diff. was better by the nurses when in fact it was worst. I was discharged and came home. Then I got angry. I went to a closer hospital and found an ER doctor willing to get the most expensive drug to have as a prescription to help the C. Diff. go away. It worked. I started feelings better.

So then I was to take radioactive iodine. I had to go on a no iodine diet. That meant no salt. Finding things to eat was hard. Then right before the doctor administered the treatment, I was told that the radioactive iodine could cause stomach, bladder, or leukemia. This was told to me the day before treatment. I refused it at first. But the doctor convinced me that because I was so full of cancer in my throat that he would do it so I should. So I drank lots of water to prevent my bladder from being damaged, and I had to stay 20 feet away from everyone, including my husband. I can hardly write about this as I still HAVE CANCER!

The radioactive iodine was to clear up any residential cancer. My tumor in the back of my throat was a surgery where they went into the front of the tumor, through my mouth and just try to scrape the cancer out. I think my surgeon thought that the radioactive iodine would take care of the rest, but it didn't. I still have problems swollening because the nerve did not hell. I choke on water. I have food I sneeze through my nose. The cancer is still in the back of my throat, I think. They need to remove the rest, but before I let someone else operate on me I am going to try an alternative treatment. My next article will describe this treatment in detail. My summary is that don't believe that any cancer is easy to get rid. Believe me that people are getting cancer at an very high rate. My husband has it, my cousin has it, my best friend's son has it. The rate will be as 1 out of every 2 men will have some type of cancer. 1 out of every 3 women will have some type. My advice is to read, read, read, and research everything you can. Read my next blog on an alternative treatment to see if you might want to get help from what we have found.